Re: [ericas] Starting the discussion

[Vinayak Hegde <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 12:25 AM, S Moonesamy <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I would appreciate if anyone or any organization from non-emerging regions
> do not take any ideas proposed by people from emerging regions and take
> credit for it.  There are some people from non-emerging regions on this
> mailing list who have been unselfish and have helped emerging regions.  I
> have not seen them taking credit for that.
>
> There are currently only three persons from emerging regions on
> directorates (Fernando, Vinayak).  What I would like to highlight is that
> it is difficult to find people from emerging regions who can and will
> contribute.
>
>
Partly I think these people are self-selecting. It is a chicken and egg
problem. People do not participate and hence do not see value. There is
some initial handholding required. The IETF culture is very different from
most other conferences I have been to. The ISOC Fellowship to the IETF does
help people to get to meetings. That is very useful as nothing can replace
the meeting experience. I am saying this from the personal experience. I
had been participating remotely and on the mailing lists before attending
the meeting. The meeting was a very different experience.


> There is the money barrier.  It is very expensive to attend IETF meetings.
>  It's nearly impossible to get funding probably because the local community
> does not see any value in the IETF.  There are a few people who may have
> heard of the IETF.  Some of them have very little understanding of how the
> IETF works.
>
>
True. A chicken-and-egg problem. Thanks to ISOC, we have some participants
from India. I am planning to get them together and create a small community
in Bangalore (which has enough critical mass of techies related to
Internet). Also I think people from emerging countries should help
themselves and not wait for outside help. I think South America has some
critical mass and has some good leaders in Alejandro / Eduardo / Hugo who
attend meetings regularly and also participate in the regional conferences.
I have met quite a few active participants from South America. I am pretty
sure that atleast some of this success can be replicated in other regions.

I attended SANOG and local ISOC meetings and talked about the IETF (and my
experience at the meetings and the mailing lists). There was a good deal of
interest and a few people joined the mailing lists and applied for the
fellowships but again there was no initial handholding and some of these
people dropped off. IF anyone has any suggestions on how to do this better,
then they are welcome.

It is mentioned that individuals from Africa or South America are
> participating in the IETF when it is well-known that the number of
> individuals is so small that it is not even relevant.  As someone mentioned
> in a report, it is a known fact that organizations will bring in people
> from these regions even though it is well-known that they cannot
> participate.  There are people from emerging regions who make the matter
> worse.  They understand the politics and use it for their own gain.
>  Emerging regions end up having a bad reputation because of that.
>
>
True. I have seen people from emerging regions who come to the meeting but
do not contribute (at least continually) but it is a hard problem to solve.

It would help if the IETF put in effort in reaching out to people from
> emerging regions.  That is not happening at the moment.  I understand that
> the IETF does not have the resources to do that.
>

I think having IETF meetings in places where you want to encourage
participation is a good idea. I have raised these before but honestly the
answers were unsatisfying. The worst I have heard is that most of the
participants come from NA/Europe and for them traveling is hard /
expensive. If we want to maintain the status quo then it will be maintained
(if we accept reasons such as this). I see very few reasons why a IETF
meeting cannot be held in India or in South America. I have brought this up
with IAOC members (active/inactive) and not got convincing answers. The W3C
meeting was held in Hyderabad a couple of years back and a SIGCOMM meeting
was held in Delhi. SANOG has been held in India for several years. All were
well attended and went off well. What will also help is that if we can have
a pre/post meetings (I don't know how this can be done) so that there is
continuous interest leading to the event so it is not a one-off thing. I
think this happened in Beijing and there is some good participation from
China.


>
> I would describe the main barrier as politics.  Some people from
> non-emerging countries turn a blind eye to the problems or choose to tackle
> problems where the outcome might suit their interests.
>

See above

>
> I would like to thank Lars Eggert for setting up this mailing list.  I
> encourage people from emerging regions to use this opportunity to discuss
> about the challenges.  It is up to you to speak up by posting you opinion
> to this mailing list.  If you do not do that people from non-emerging
> regions will speak in your name and it is unlikely that it will be in your
> interest.
>
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy